CBR: Tilting at Windmills - Dec 19, 2008

[CBR News]

October & November were good sales months for Brian Hibbs -- has December been faring as well? Plus, an examination of Marvel's $3.99 price increase and what it all really means for the future of comics sales and trade collections.


Full article here.

[AirDave]

RE: Economics / Recession / Marvel's $3.99 price point.

Just a few weeks ago I heard at work that if there aren't layoffs, there is going to be salary cuts. I don't think I'm the only one who has heard something like that. My salary gets lower and the cost of my interest increases. That means to me that I will be buying fewer monthly titles and waiting for the softcover trade paperback collection. I'm having to adjust and juggle to balance things out.

There was a time when all I was reading was Ultimate Spider-Man. It was what I could afford, and I still like reading it. I may whittle my pull list back down to just that.

[TStrong]

Great column this month. I love money numbers. Thanks.

I loved (and still have) Tilting #1. I'm delighted to hear that Tilting #2 is coming out -- but why couldn't it have come out BEFORE Christmas?

[morganagrom]

Maybe it's time for publishers and retailers to consider whether it's time to cut back on the pamphlets in favor of books. If $3.99 pamphlets are a catalyst, bring them on!

[Shaggy]

the first thing that comes to mind when i hear "Marvel" and "$3.99" in the same sentence is Astonishing X-Men: Ghost Boxes #1. that had a $3.99 price tag and was advertised as a 48-page book. only 16 of those were the actual story. the rest was the script and advertisements. no thank you.

[Red_Skull]

Interesting column as much as i would hate for a price increase do ya'll think comic book companys could be in trouble or do ya'll thin this will blow over and people will get use to it.

[Brian Hibbs]

Maybe it's time for publishers and retailers to consider whether it's time to cut back on the pamphlets in favor of books. If $3.99 pamphlets are a catalyst, bring them on!

Just to observe that JJ MIller made the following observation:

"Getting the Top 300 trades does really show us a lot more of the picture — just the Top 100 brought in $6 million, whereas the next 200 added $2.3 million. The “overall” total minus the combined comics and TPB totes leaves only $5.4 million, much of which is more trades — but now, we can say that the Diamond Top TPB list accounts for more than half of direct market initial orders."

We've been converting to a book economy for some time.

Here's the thing though: in most months the BEST-SELLING TP virtually never manages to hit 10k units, whereas the Top 10 of periodicals virtually always has several titles over 100k.

It doesn't seem to me that is necessarily a trade off which will keep creating in enough money to keep creating. Audience size surely matters.

-B

[morganagrom]

Just to observe that JJ MIller made the following observation:

"Getting the Top 300 trades does really show us a lot more of the picture — just the Top 100 brought in $6 million, whereas the next 200 added $2.3 million. The “overall” total minus the combined comics and TPB totes leaves only $5.4 million, much of which is more trades — but now, we can say that the Diamond Top TPB list accounts for more than half of direct market initial orders."

We've been converting to a book economy for some time.

Here's the thing though: in most months the BEST-SELLING TP virtually never manages to hit 10k units, whereas the Top 10 of periodicals virtually always has several titles over 100k.

It doesn't seem to me that is necessarily a trade off which will keep creating in enough money to keep creating. Audience size surely matters.

-B

1. The top 10 pamphlets hitting over 100k are largely Marvel and DC superhero comics, so the retailer who relies too heavily as part of their business model on them deserves what they get.

2. Comparisons between paperback and pamphlet numbers are skewed. Pamphlets only sell a portion of a story (perhaps a 6 part serial) per month. Paperbacks tell an extended story all at once. At the very least the comparison should be between pamphlets over the course of 6 months vs. paperbacks over the course of 6 months. It would also be very interesting to know the sell-through comparisons.

3. Numbers for paperbacks of stories that were previously serialized are going to be skewed downward simply because many of the potential readers of those stories will have already bought the exact same stories as pamphlets.

4. Perhaps the tradeoff is a good thing. Let Marvel make money on their website through subscriptions and/or advertising and the comic bookstores can make money on the print paperbacks. Everybody wins!

[fredmanson]

I don't know if I will buy "standard" Marvel titles at $3.99.
They are full of adds and paper quality is not a very good one.
Do not say "maybe the cover will be a premium one", it's useless.

I have bought the first four issues of Wildstorm "Gears of War". A $3.99 comic book. What a high price for a classic 22-24 story pages and a lot of adds! Just because it's a franchise and it has a premium cover...

For me, living in France, it was much better to me to subscribe to this title, which I've done. Now, I pay more less for this title than for a "standard" Marvel title with a rebate done by my Texan furnisher!

For the IDW comic book prices, they have all a very good to excellent paper quality, few adds, a lot of titles promotions and the story is in a single part, not cut by adds. That's a correct price for a really correct product.

Dark Horse choose an another way: more pages with more adds but at the same price. That's also OK for me!

But, in the other way, when you see that Radical Publishing titles are sold at $2.99 with a top quality paper/cover (the best one for a long, long, long time I ever saw!), few adds, titles promotions, you can ask some questions about the "great" publishers interests...

Are they for the readers interests or for the actionnaries interests?

I claim here that if the Marvel/DC titles I'm reading now increase their price, I stop them.

And for ever.

[Brian Hibbs]

1. The top 10 pamphlets hitting over 100k are largely Marvel and DC superhero comics, so the retailer who relies too heavily as part of their business model on them deserves what they get.

I'm not sure here exactly what you're saying. I've been selling comics in my own store for almost 20 years now, at at other people's stores for at least 5 years before THAT (gah, I'm getting old!!), and Marvel and DC superhero comics have ALWAYS been the best sellers in the wider market.

If you were talking about something that had recently developed over the last 3-5 years you may possibly had a point, but we're talking about something that has multiple generations of readership!

We're talking about product lines that, in the existence of the Direct Market, have generated BILLIONS of dollars of sales.

This would not seem to me to be something that should be lightly dismissed.

2. Comparisons between paperback and pamphlet numbers are skewed. Pamphlets only sell a portion of a story (perhaps a 6 part serial) per month. Paperbacks tell an extended story all at once. At the very least the comparison should be between pamphlets over the course of 6 months vs. paperbacks over the course of 6 months. It would also be very interesting to know the sell-through comparisons.

Sure. How about BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER SEASON 8?

The periodical sales for the first 5 issues (from Marc-Oliver Frisch's analysis @ The Beat):


03/2007: Buffy #1 — 109,919 [158,437]
04/2007: Buffy #2 — 96,409 (-12.3%) [132,378]
05/2007: Buffy #3 — 106,634 (+10.6%) [125,078]
06/2007: Buffy #4 — 102,430 (- 3.9%) [117,866]
07/2007: Buffy #5 — 100,830 (- 2.0%) [109,322]

More than 643k copies sold, with a low point of 109k, and an average of 128k

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER v1: THE LONG WAY HOME, which contains those five issues (pulled out of the ICv2 charts):

10/2007: 8762
11/2007: 1650
12/2007: 2428
1/2008: 1980
2/2008: 1719
3/2008: 1181

Equals 17,720 copies sold.

BookScan during the last 3 months of 2007 (I don't have '08 data yet): 13025, and given that the first three months are virtually identical to the DM (a diff of all of 182 copies), let's be generous and say it's 19k total through the full six months.

Roughly 37k total in both channels.

(Parenthetically worth mentioning, at a $15.95 cover price, the cost-per-issue is $3.19, vs $2.99 on the periodical)

Now, would a creator rather have a minimum of 109k readers (or an average of 128k), or 37k?

I'm going to go way way way out on a limb and guess it would be the former.

Not that I purposefully picked one of the single most attractive-to-"civilians" properties here, to skew the argument more to "your" side.

Over a 3-5 year period, sure, the book will eventually sell more copies than the periodical, but the real truth is that, outside of a very small percentage of books, most TP collections or OGNs actually have viable sales windows that number in the months, if not weeks -- not years.

If you look at Diamond's newly expanded top *300* book list, you can see BUFFY v1 has slipped down to ~400 copies sold per month now -- maybe a third of its initial velocity. This is simply how books sell, over time!

3. Numbers for paperbacks of stories that were previously serialized are going to be skewed downward simply because many of the potential readers of those stories will have already bought the exact same stories as pamphlets.

Typically "OGNs" (that is NOT reprinted material) only sell a fraction of their "parent" as a periodical.

As an example (limited to month #1 because you're not paying me for the research):
LOEG BLACK DOSSIER: 20719
LOEG II #6: 56948

FABLES 1001 NIGHTS OF SNOWFALL: 15289
FABLES #54 (the issue release the same month): 25534

Also, I have to say, as a guy who actually owns a comics store, and actually sells them to humans every day, that, generally, the audience for the periodical and the TP is very very distinct (eg: Anything published by Vertigo)

4. Perhaps the tradeoff is a good thing. Let Marvel make money on their website through subscriptions and/or advertising and the comic bookstores can make money on the print paperbacks. Everybody wins!

TPs make the profit, it is certain true -- but periodicals provide the CASH FLOW that is ESSENTIAL to a specialized business like a comics store.

If periodicals went away tomorrow, as one, so would 95% of the dedicated comics stores. *I* sure couldn't survive without the cash flow the periodicals bring, and I'm one of the few stores that has been consciously and specifically pushing my store towards a bookstore model for nigh on ten years now.

I don't believe your premises are correct!

-B

[morganagrom]

I'm not sure here exactly what you're saying. I've been selling comics in my own store for almost 20 years now, at at other people's stores for at least 5 years before THAT (gah, I'm getting old!!), and Marvel and DC superhero comics have ALWAYS been the best sellers in the wider market.

If you were talking about something that had recently developed over the last 3-5 years you may possibly had a point, but we're talking about something that has multiple generations of readership!

We're talking about product lines that, in the existence of the Direct Market, have generated BILLIONS of dollars of sales.

This would not seem to me to be something that should be lightly dismissed.

"This is how we should do things because this is how we've always done things."

What would be so horrible about actively working to turn a customer base away from one dominant product line toward a diverse line. Being tied to a dominant product line puts the retailers at the mercy of that producer.

Sure. How about BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER SEASON 8?

The periodical sales for the first 5 issues (from Marc-Oliver Frisch's analysis @ The Beat):


03/2007: Buffy #1 — 109,919 [158,437]
04/2007: Buffy #2 — 96,409 (-12.3%) [132,378]
05/2007: Buffy #3 — 106,634 (+10.6%) [125,078]
06/2007: Buffy #4 — 102,430 (- 3.9%) [117,866]
07/2007: Buffy #5 — 100,830 (- 2.0%) [109,322]

More than 643k copies sold, with a low point of 109k, and an average of 128k

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER v1: THE LONG WAY HOME, which contains those five issues (pulled out of the ICv2 charts):

10/2007: 8762
11/2007: 1650
12/2007: 2428
1/2008: 1980
2/2008: 1719
3/2008: 1181

Equals 17,720 copies sold.

BookScan during the last 3 months of 2007 (I don't have '08 data yet): 13025, and given that the first three months are virtually identical to the DM (a diff of all of 182 copies), let's be generous and say it's 19k total through the full six months.

Roughly 37k total in both channels.

(Parenthetically worth mentioning, at a $15.95 cover price, the cost-per-issue is $3.19, vs $2.99 on the periodical)

Now, would a creator rather have a minimum of 109k readers (or an average of 128k), or 37k?

I'm going to go way way way out on a limb and guess it would be the former.

Not that I purposefully picked one of the single most attractive-to-"civilians" properties here, to skew the argument more to "your" side.

Over a 3-5 year period, sure, the book will eventually sell more copies than the periodical, but the real truth is that, outside of a very small percentage of books, most TP collections or OGNs actually have viable sales windows that number in the months, if not weeks -- not years.

If you look at Diamond's newly expanded top *300* book list, you can see BUFFY v1 has slipped down to ~400 copies sold per month now -- maybe a third of its initial velocity. This is simply how books sell, over time!

Skipping past the point that many of the pamphlet buyers may well have bought the book had they not already bought the pamphlets. It's hard to imagine that the "civilians" would have turned downt he book had it been a paperback.

There's also the sell-through issue.

Typically "OGNs" (that is NOT reprinted material) only sell a fraction of their "parent" as a periodical.

As an example (limited to month #1 because you're not paying me for the research):
LOEG BLACK DOSSIER: 20719
LOEG II #6: 56948

FABLES 1001 NIGHTS OF SNOWFALL: 15289
FABLES #54 (the issue release the same month): 25534

Also, I have to say, as a guy who actually owns a comics store, and actually sells them to humans every day, that, generally, the audience for the periodical and the TP is very very distinct (eg: Anything published by Vertigo)

LOEG BLACK DOSSIER and FABLES 1001 NIGHTS OF SNOWFALL - both expensive hardcovers which present a sticker shock. Perhaps if the numbers were combined with the paperback numbers, as well as the 6-month bookscan numbers.

Also, how's the sell-through? Might it not be the case that the paperbacks could be more profitable because a retailer doesn't have to stock as deep as they do on the pamphlets?

What exactly makes the audiences distinct? If Vertigto were to only publish DMZ or Scalped as paperbacks, would those audiences just give up and go home? Really?

TPs make the profit, it is certain true -- but periodicals provide the CASH FLOW that is ESSENTIAL to a specialized business like a comics store.

If periodicals went away tomorrow, as one, so would 95% of the dedicated comics stores. *I* sure couldn't survive without the cash flow the periodicals bring, and I'm one of the few stores that has been consciously and specifically pushing my store towards a bookstore model for nigh on ten years now.

I don't believe your premises are correct!

So, getting back to 1, why do direct market retailers allow themselves to become so beholden to one or two main producers?

Also, how does one move toward a bookstore model while encouraging and celebrating the pamphlets model? They seem like conflicting goals.

[morganagrom]

As for the comics named in the article, “New Avengers,” “Hulk,” “Punisher Max,” and “Dark Avengers,” what can stores beholden to Marvel do, other than cut somewhere else?

Perhaps they could choose not to stock shelf-copies of these books and inform their customers that if they want a copy they need to pre-order one, otherwise the store will not be carrying shelf copies and let the customers know they are making this move in response to Marvel's price raise.

Would it really be that awful not having shelf-copies of the Hulk?

[brettscomicpile]

Good eve!

My name is Brett, and I own a back issue company on the East Coast. I was fascinated to read your article about the price increases, and enjoyed the manner in which the argument was levied around the fact that comic collectors for the most part are not swayed by price jumps...as exemplified by Secret Invasion and the various Dark Tower minis.

I do think you may be on to something. Also, I appreciate the manner in which you extrapolated the possible future rise of trade paperback prices. Thank you exploring this, rather than simply saying "price increases are bad!".

I have a question for folks out there regarding the current pricing schemes, though...why didn't Marvel (and soon, DC) look to their own pricing history regarding increases?

No, I am not talking about the very sly "Stan's Soapbox" musing regarding the shift from 12 cents to 15 cents, where ol' Smiley reminds his legions that now they can avoid fumbling for pennies. What I mean is in many historic pricing moves, often tied to economic downturn, companies offset consumer frustrations by giving them MORE for their dollar, before really going for the wallet.

Waaay back when Marvel was exploring the jump from 15 cents to 20 cents, they bridged it by going for a short time to 25 cents, but giving more pages to the books. The same with DC. In the wee days of the early 1970s, publishers figured something out, that for many became the rule of easing into price jumps...and here it is:

If today the typical comic book is 32 pages, with 10 ad pages and costs $2.99 one possible bridge exists that makes almost everyone happy (except for retailers when it comes to their UPS fees). That option is to simply GIVE MORE. Toss in 12 more pages. I highly suggest reprints from similar series'. I may even be so bold as to recommend comics printed from 1997-1999, which are almost IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND. stick in 7-8 pages of reprinted story, and nail us with another 4-5 pages of ads.

Perhaps the economics are different because of the paltry print-runs of today, but I THOUGHT most comics are still paid for by advertising (and of course licensing). Bump the quantity of pages up by 50%, and you will bump the advertising by 50%. Tell the reader they are getting 50% more story pages, while only gouging them a little bit (new cover price of $3.50 perhaps?), squeeze more cash out of advertisers, and open readers up to great stories they might have missed. Better yet, give them the first 8 pages of a must-read graphic novel that they should have on their shelf already, but don't.

Never underestimate the power of giving people a little extra. It could pay off big time in the long run, and bridges the gap for the inevitable $3.99 price for a mere 32 pages in the not-too-distant future.

It just makes sense...let advertisers off-set the cost of a price increase, and at the same time give the readers more story-value with a minimal cost impact to publishers.

Anyone with me?

Regards,

Brett

[Somebody]

As for the comics named in the article, “New Avengers,” “Hulk,” “Punisher Max,” and “Dark Avengers,” what can stores beholden to Marvel do, other than cut somewhere else?

Perhaps they could choose not to stock shelf-copies of these books and inform their customers that if they want a copy they need to pre-order one, otherwise the store will not be carrying shelf copies and let the customers know they are making this move in response to Marvel's price raise.

Would it really be that awful not having shelf-copies of the Hulk?

Yes, because the readers who wander in to get their fix of Hulk and can't get it won't buy *insert random non-superhero issue here*, they'll go to another shop that stocks Hulk and get it there, or order it online. So shop A loses the sale, and if this pattern continues and expands to non-Hulk superhero comics, they'll go to the other shop for everything INCLUDING their non-superhero comics. So the shop loses money and goes out of business.

You're (A) assuming that people want to go in and spend $X on "comics", rather than $X on the specific comics that they want, and (B) playing Simpsons Comic Book Guy, only sneering at slightly different stuff.

A shop can't afford to boycott their lead supplier, simple as that.

[Somebody]

Perhaps the economics are different because of the paltry print-runs of today, but I THOUGHT most comics are still paid for by advertising (and of course licensing). Bump the quantity of pages up by 50%, and you will bump the advertising by 50%..

The bit you miss - for the past three years, Marvel increased the amount of ads in their comics to insane levels in the last three months or so of the year - comics literally hit 50% ads in some cases, and most came close, with 21 or 22 pages of story in a 48 page comic. These were interspersed with the story, so you went story page-ad-story page-ad-ad-story page-story-page-ad... etc.

This year? They solicited 48 page comics. Then, suddenly, they started sending out revisions saying "(Comic A), originally solicited as 48 pages, will now be 32 pages with no change in the contents". Moreover, a lot of the ad pages have been house ads, like the "Embrace Change" stuff.

Marvel's ad supply is drying up.